The present invention broadly relates to the intermediate storage of printed products and, more specifically, pertains to a new and improved method and apparatus for the intermediate storage of printed products arriving in an imbricated product formation or stream, such as newspapers, periodicals and the like.
Generally speaking, the method of the present invention for the intermediate storage of printed products arriving in an imbricated product formation or stream comprises the steps of delivering the printed products in an imbricated product formation with predetermined edges of the printed products trailing and winding-up the printed products in imbricated product formation upon a winding mandril and conjointly with a winding band or strap maintained under tension to form coil or wound product package with the leading edges located adjacent a next inner layer of the coil or wound product package being formed.
The apparatus of the present invention for the intermediate storage of printed products arriving in an imbricated product formation or stream comprises a rotatable and driveable winding arbor or mandril for winding up the printed products into an imbricated product formation, a conveyor device for transporting the imbricated product formation to be wound up to the winding mandril, respectively to a coil or wound product package being formed thereupon, a winding band or strap operatively connected to the winding mandril and capable of being placed under tension, the winding band or strap being entrained between coil layers of the coil or wound product package being formed as the imbricated product formation is wound up, predetermined edges of the printed products trailing within the imbricated product formation and the altered imbricated product formation being wound up such that the leading edges of the printed products are adjacent to the winding mandril, respectively to the coil or wound product package forming upon the winding mandril.
A method of this type and an apparatus of this type are known, for instance from the U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,618, granted Mar. 27, 1984. According to this known solution, the imbricated product formation is wound up as it arrives, for instance from a rotary printing press or rotogravure machine, that is with the leading edges of the printed products, which are normally the folded edges, upward. Since the imbricated product formation is delivered to the winding mandril in so-to-speak "underfeed", that is with the leading edges of the printed products closer to the axis of rotation of the winding mandril than the trailing edges, conjointly with a winding band or strap, the printed products are deposited with their leading edges adjacent to or in contact with the coil or wound package. This measure assures that each inner layer of the coil or package can be further rotated in the winding direction of the coil or package in relation to the next outer layer. It is therefore possible to further rotate or wind up the coil or package from the interior in the manner of a clock spring and to thereby compact the product coil or wound package.
This type of intermediate storage of printed products in an intermediate storage coil or wound package has, however, the disadvantage that when the printed products are unwound or wound off, they have another position or orientation within the imbricated product formation carried away from the intermediate storage coil or package than they did within the imbricated product formation delivered to the intermediate storage coil or package. This is undesirable in further processing.
It has been proposed, for instance in the commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 06/338,568, filed Jan. 11, 1982, since granted as U.S. Pat. No. 4,494,359 on Jan. 22, 1985, and the cognate British Pat. No. 2,092,557, to again wind up the imbricated product formation removed from the intermediate storage coil or package to a second transfer coil or package in order to recreate the original imbricated product formation. The imbricated product formation wound off this second transfer coil or package will now correspond to the original imbricated product formation in respect to the position or orientation of the printed products within this imbricated product formation, but a considerable amount of equipment is necessary to achieve this goal.